Zane Safrit

Engage Your Brand Evangelists in the Hiring Process

One of the first steps in building a culture of engagement is to hire the right person. Rarely mentioned in this obviously key step is the process.

When will you know it’s time to hire another person?

Many readers will roll their eyes and say:

Well, it’s obvious. Because...[X or Y]

X and Y is their favorite reason or metric. Ok.

How do you find the right people to interview?

Some readers might say

Put an ad in the paper or LinkedIn. Look at the unemployment rate. 

Ok.

What questions do we ask these candidates?

A few readers might turn to trick questions. Google’s famous or infamous for its trick questions. A few may have HR departments skilled in traditional interview techniques. One manager I interviewed with claimed to have trained with the CIA and he could read your eye movements. O-h-h-h-kay*.

How do you prepare for their arrival?

We’ll figure it out, maybe give ‘em Jimmie’s desk over’n the corner.

 Jimmie shouts yeah, buddy! at this news. 

But, too many companies take this approach and the collective result is very shortly 70% of those new hires merely go through their paces. Zombies repeating tasks and answers in a monotone voice.

Let’s revisit those questions with an eye towards recognizing and including your in-house hiring experts: your employees.

When will you know it’s time to hire another person?

Listen to your employees. Better yet, ask them the question explicitly.

How do you find the right people to interview?

See above. They are motivated to find the right person to hire, quickly. That new hire will have a significant and direct impact on the quality of their day.

Worried about them hiring their friend? Don’t be. Question Number 10 on Gallup’s Q12 survey of employee engagement levels is this:

Do you have a best friend at work?

Based on the average employee engagement figures for US companies, I'd guess that only 30% or less of US employees would answer yes. That's what friendship is about: not recruiting your best friend to work where you work, where you hate working. 

What questions should you ask?

Everyone has blind spots. One good way to look around our own blind corners is to ask others what they see. The current way, excluding employees, is like driving around our own blind corners in the night with no headlights and ask for a raise if we don’t hit someone.

Is this expensive, time-consuming? Compared to what? Dr. Brad Smart author of Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Keeping and Coaching the Best Players and The Smart Interviewer: Tools and Techniques for Hiring the Best reports that

Based on our studies, the average cost of a mis-hire can be six times the base salary for a sales rep, 15 times base salary for a manager, and as much as 27 times base salary for an executive. 

Is that more expensive, more time-consuming, than asking your in-house recruiters to spend four to five hours to assess someone they will be expected to train, support and mentor while also doing their own jobs?

The key word after employee is engage. I didn’t say relinquish authority or ignore budgets. Criteria need to be set and communicated. Decisions need to be made. Personnel need accountability. But, in this process, where you engage their talents and insights and motivations in finding the best person to help reach their goals those topics will be addressed.

Warning - Self-Promotion: I have a short, modest, ebook on The Collaborative Hiring Process. It includes some further resources that will leverage the contributions of your engaged employees. It’s free.

The other two resources are:

 Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Keeping and Coaching the Best Players 

 The Smart Interviewer: Tools and Techniques for Hiring the Best Of these two, I prefer this one. It outlines the very extensive, very useful, CIDS or Chronological In-Depth Structured interview. I've used it successfully four times: 3 great hires and 1 bad hire avoided. 

But the most important resource are those recruiting, interviewing, experts who sit and work around you, all day long. They are very motivated to find the best person to help sustain and enrich their culture, their day, their achievements and career. As a result, you’re motivated to include them.

WARNING: Self-Promotion.

If you want to know more ways to engage with your employees, my book RECOGNIZE THEM: 52 Ways to Recognize Your Employees in Ways They Value offers 52 ways to recognize your employees, easy exercises to reinforce those habits and skills and inspirational quotes to keep you going.

Want Engaged Employees? Hire the Right People the First Time

Heads are nodding. Some readers might say Of course. Others might think Well, there’s plenty more. Still others might think We can train ‘em.

You give yourself and everyone in your organization a head start on reaching your goals if you hire the right people the first time. Implicit in this step is you avoid hiring the wrong people any  time, every time.

Besides the obvious costs of recruiting, interviewing, and training there’s the additional costs each bad hire entails for a company. Those are the distractions and diversions a bad hire generates. Cleaning up the mess or cleaning up after them or cleaning up after you is how everyone else will phrase it.  Cleaning up the mess is expensive.

How expensive? Dr. Brad Smart author of Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Keeping and Coaching the Best Players and The Smart Interviewer: Tools and Techniques for Hiring the Best reports that...

Based on our studies, the average cost of a mis-hire can be six times the base salary for a sales rep, 15 times base salary for a manager, and as much as 27 times base salary for an executive.

For startups and smaller companies, for rapid-growth companies, hiring the right person is critical. There’s no extra cash lying around in some forgotten account. There’s only room to shine leaving no place to hide.

As companies grow, the tendency is to recognize the bureaucracy and not the person. That tendency contributes to employee engagement figures dropping to 30% or less. That culture of non-recognition and disengagement is where non-performers hide or those whose performance best fits another company.

Who’s the right person?

• Look in the mirror. Have you taken the StrengthsFinder 2.0 survey?  Who works best with your strengths and talents and who owns the skills and experiences your company needs with this position?

• Ask those around you. Have they taken the StrengthsFinder 2.0 survey? Who works best with their strengths and talents and who owns the skills and experiences your company needs with this position?

• Use the CIDS interview. CIDS stands for Chronological In-Depth Structured interview. It’s described in detail in Dr. Brad Smart’s book: The Smart Interviewer: Tools and Techniques for Hiring the Best I used it successfully four times, hiring three great people and avoiding one bad hire. I’ve written about CIDS numerous times in the past. You can read them here.

As you create a culture of recognition the importance of this step will grow from one of platitudes and website mission statements to realities lived every day. Hiring the right person the first time leverages your investment in the hiring process to create a culture of recognition and engagement. The rewards will be seen in lower hiring costs, employee turnover, costly mistakes, lower Cost of Goods Sold, higher gross profits, greater customer loyalty and lower customer turnover, higher sales conversion rates and the pleasure of spending a day with passionate, engaged, professionals delivering a great experience for each other and your customers.

WARNING: Self-Promotion.

If you want to know more ways to engage with your employees, my book RECOGNIZE THEM: 52 Ways to Recognize Your Employees in Ways They Value offers 52 ways to recognize your employees, easy exercises to reinforce those habits and skills and inspirational quotes to keep you going.

Three Things Our Bosses Deserve

We all serve bosses. Our banks or investors, our board, our customers, our employees, our pets (yeah, sometimes, it seems), our spouses, our children, at times now even our parents, our religion, our military commanders, coaches, captains...all or separately serve as our boss. We serve them. We serve at their pleasure. And at times, we reverse the roles and serve as ‘their’ boss.

We grow, succeed, reach new heights...on the basis of our success serving our bosses.

It’s important we know what they want, what we want when it’s our turn as boss. Chris Brogan’s August newsletter offered Three Things Our Bosses Need.

And I riff’d on his list at this post here.

And as I drove around later that day, I thought three things:

1. I like Chris’s post.
2. I have a similarly, but slightly different, perspective.
3. Bosses...deserve these three things. (If not, then why do they remain your boss?)

Here’s my three things:

Be Clear. Be clear on your purpose, your role, your goal, your strategy and the tactics you’ll use to reach your goals. Be clear how your goals mesh, support, enhance, those of your company. And how they do the same for you. A good boss, ok a great boss, will create the opportunity for you to match those with your company’s goals. But, without your clarity neither will be successful. Be clear.

Bring Solutions. Chris touched on this with his point:A boss needs actionable solutions. Bringing problems to the boss is a mess. Bring solutions with each challenge you find. Maybe, it is not a complete solution. But, bring the first step towards a complete solution. (Otherwise, prepare yourself for the comfortable settings and repetitions of a cog in the wheel...)

Be Adaptable. Change is the game, today, in business. Innovation is the source of growth for business and their stakeholders. Only the adaptable members of a species survive. Smart is a good start; so is energetic. Adaptability keeps them moving in the right direction with the current environment.

Again, we all have bosses. If your boss does not deserve these three things from you...why are they your boss? That's your choice.

Employees, Privacy and Engagement Pt. 2

Last week I wrote the first of this series: Employees, Privacy and Engagement. I listed a few reasons why workplace privacy continues as a contentious issue and why its path to a resolution may prove rocky.

I asked if anyone had any ideas on how to make this path, this journey smoother.

A post at  HR Daily Advisor inspired these two posts. Their post was titled Do Employees Have a Right to Privacy? They answered with one key principle: limiting expectations. They offer 4 tips to limit your employees’ expectation of privacy at work.

That principle is right. Managing expectations is a key principle in building any brand. And managing employee expectations for privacy is a key principle in building trust and engagement.

Note: I've always told employees that I will come and look at their emails with customers. I want to see what customers are saying, in their own words. I also sometimes sat at their desk during lunches or their meetings in order to answer calls and emails from customers and prospects. It proved a fair tradeoff.

Ideas on what NOT to do are a good first step. The next step is the step forward...to building a tribe of loyal, passionate, A-Player employees too busy creating their brand.

Here’s a few ideas to that. Most are ones I’ve used before:

1. Hire A-Players.

A-Players are talented, motivated and engaged. They will only work where their talents and strengths are on display, fully engaged in fulfilling a meaningful purpose for them and those around them. They also will create this environment for themselves and those around them. And if they can’t, they will leave.

A-Players are too busy creating their world to worry about employee privacy; in fact, privacy concerns are antithetical. Why? They want to be recognized. It's a powerful motivator. And they expect to be rewarded.

If you have issues with disputes over employee privacy, look here first. Ask yourself:

•  Have you hired A-Players?
• Have you created an environment where they can succeed?

Ask them, too.

2. Create Opportunity for Your A-Players. 

Bob Corlett of Staffing Advisors recently enlightened me for what is meaningful for today's new recruits: New recruits are looking for the opportunity to make a difference.

You hired the best. Now:

• listen to them
• trust them
• give them the necessary tools and resources. Make it possible for them to display their talents and strengths, do what they’re good at (what you hired them for) and do what they love, working with those who share a similar commitment.

3. Reward with Recognition

Money’s not at the top of the list of meaningful rewards. Recognition is at the top. In fact, recognition holds the top 10-11 spots for meaningful rewards for all of us.

Marcus Buckingham* interviewed hundreds of thousands of employees. His goal was to find what makes a great manager. One of his finding was you can tell a great manager by the environment that manager creates for their A-Players. (Great managers hire and create A-Players, only A-Players.) From this research, he offered 12 questions that identify a workplace as great or not-so-great.

1.Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2.Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best everyday?
4.In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
5. Does my supervisor or someone at work seem to care about me as a person?
6.Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?
9.Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
12.This last year, have I had the opportunity at work to learn and grow?

A great workplace was one where the employees answered yes to all 12.

Would your employees answer yes to these questions? How many?

Also, notice three things:

1. Clear expectations are number one.
2. The remaining 11 deal with personal recognition by peers and management.
3. There is no mention of...money.

4. Stir and repeat.

This is a recipe; it’s not a policy manual. A little bit more of this, a little bit less of that and, presto!, you have your great workplace. It's the dish you and your employees can savor, together. You may be inspired to invite your customers to join you, too. In fact, they'll insist.

Employee privacy is not the issue. Meetings about employee privacy concerns are the canary in the coal-mine that your brand is almost out of oxygen.

Look at the companies recognized for employee engagement and customer evangelism. You'll see this process personalized for their brand and its purpose. You may find a few mentions of employee privacy. Few. It's almost an affront to the employee's sense of personal integrity.

Look at the companies slowly dying, losing market-share, reacting not leading. You'll find a very clear and extensive employee manual with a large section on employee privacy.

Which one is your company?

* Marcus Buckingham is leading speaker, author, researcher in the strengths revolution. This list of 12 questions was included in his book, First Break All the Rules.

6 Tips to a Successful CIDS Interview

You’re interviewing for a job? Fantastic.

And the company will interview you with the CIDS, or Chronological In-Depth Structured, Interview method.

Even better!

Here’s why. A company that uses the CIDS Interview as part of its hiring process has committed to hire only A-players. The CIDS Interview will identify A-Players...quickly. And with a high percentage of success.

That implies the company sees you as a potential A-Player.

The CIDS Interview will allow you to show your consistent history of decision-making expertise, how you have learned and grown, your track-record of growing success and even how you have successfully handled setbacks or quirky bosses.

What is CIDS? CIDS or Chronological In-Depth Structured Interview is a systematic interview method. The goal of a CIDS Interview is a systematic, structured, review of the candidate’s behavior and decision-making patterns throughout their education and business career.

The advantage of a CIDS interview is its ability to discover and showcase those decision-making patterns as they were applied and as they have matured over the years. Those patterns are a key indicator of what is to be expected if that candidate is hired. Other benefits of a CIDS interview include avoiding interviewer blindspots, insuring the candidate is the primary speaker and superficial interviews.

It was created as a tactic and resource for companies who seek to TopGrade their talent. The creator of CIDS is Brad Smart* of Topgrading. He discusses the interview, the questions, the philosophy and more in The Smart Interviewer: Tools and Techniques for Hiring the Best. He is also the author of TopGrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best.

Here’s how to prepare for this opportunity:

1. Relax.
A. You’re an A-Player.
B. A CIDS Interview should present ample opportunities to address your successes. And even the inevitable setbacks everyone has faced and how you grew from them.

2. Read the Smart Interviewer. The foundation for the CIDS Interview as well as the sequence of questions are included. This is not a cheat sheet for ‘acing’ the interview. A CIDS Interview includes calls to your former managers.
However, you will see the patterns you have used over your career. That will allow you to answer for them.
Remember: you’re an A-Player. This is your time to shine.

3. Tie the threads of your success. These are the threads that have woven your success. Tie them together in a complete understanding. Then you are prepared to present that understanding to your potential employer as an added asset for them.

4. Tie the threads of your failures. Everyone has a mistake or two or three. (I’ve lost count of mine.)
But, you learned from each mistake. That makes you an A-Player.
And you applied that new knowledge in the next opportunity. Tie that thread or those threads in the same way. Show your potential employer what you have learned. And that you have the ability to take responsibility, be accountable, and grow from your lessons. That’s the mark of a leader. A-Players are leaders. This is an opportunity for you to show in meaningful ways you are a leader.

5. Learn. Pay attention during the interview. CIDS Interviews are interviews you can conduct when you are a manager and leader at the company smart enough to hire you.

6. Celebrate. You will learn something about yourself during this process. That should reinforce you are an A-Player. Find a company smart enough to recognize you as one.

* Brad Smart spoke with me on my BlogTalk Radio show last year. You can listen on-demand at this link.

WARNING: Self-Promotion.

If you want to know more ways to engage with your employees as opposed to anonymous surveys, my book RECOGNIZE THEM: 52 Ways to Recognize Your Employees in Ways They Value offers 52 ways to recognize your employees, easy exercises to reinforce those habits and skills and inspirational quotes to keep you going.

What are you saying?

What are YOU saying?

What are you SAYING?

Your business talks to customers and employees, vendors and partners, every day. Right? What are you saying? Do they speak the same language as you? Do you care that they do or don’t?

Does anyone, customers or employees or vendors or partners, care what you say? 

If you stopped saying it would any of them notice? Would they even breathe a sigh of relief and say a quiet prayer of gratitude?

Or, would they just go on with their life as if nothing had ever happened. Because, in their life, nothing ever happened. You, your business, never happened.  The drama and passion, heartache and frustration, the few brief fleeting moments of your success...remained irrelevant to...them.

I’m not talking about fonts or colors on a website.  Special-offers and limited guarantees aren’t part of this conversation, either. And don’t even try to slip in ‘world-class customer service’.  I’m not talking about 2-3 page long mission/purpose statements that no one’s read but you and the PR agency that wrote it. That’s the same PR agency you no longer use.

I’m not talking about SLAs, LOAs, terms of service or warranty terms. Policies and employee manuals that tout the beauty and dignity of all employees...in language that only an attorney could love, aren’t included here, either.

What are you saying... to your customers and employees...in ways and words that makes them care? What are you saying that makes a difference to them, their goals and their lives? That’s where the connection happens. That’s where the relationship begins. That’s why you and your business matter to them. That’s the source of your cash-flows, for those, like me, who prefer to keep these discussions grounded. That’s the source of your respective loyalty, you to them as much as they to you. It’s a 2-way street, you know.

You know that. So...what are you saying?

The cost of new hires: pay it now or pay it later

Do we remember the bitter-sweet experience of hiring a new person?

The bitter: The costs to advertise for the position, sift through the resumes, the interview process...the training process.

The sweet:
The opportunity and possibility you saw for this new position?

The sign that your company is growing!  And there was always the sense that at-best you were rolling the dice with each new employee hired.

And that last point: your company is growing. It gave an urgency to your quest. How many of us heard, or gave, the directive to hurry up and get someone in that position fast!

And how often did that directive, when carried out, end up in disaster? We rushed through interviews, assumed the references spoke well, minimized that quirky answer, ignored the candidate's nervous twitch or their sketchy background. And then spent months cleaning up the results from demoralized co-workers, unhappy customers, lost revenues, lost sales, or worse.

And for a small company, the impact of new hire is even greater. One new person in a company of 10 or 15 employees has a much more immediate impact throughout the company than a new hire in a company of 10,000 employees.

Brad Smart, author of Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People, quantifies the reminder that you always pay the costs for new hires. The only question is whether you pay it now or pay it later.

Paying it now, with a thorough interview process, is much much cheaper. You can save as much as $60,000 per hour with the Topgrading hiring process.

I've used it with success, in the past, 4 out of 4 times. It's well worth the time investment.

You can listen to Brad Smart's conversation with me on BlogTalk Radio last year.

BlogTalk Radio: Brad Smart, PhD., Author of TopGrading and The Smart Interviewer

Brad Smart, PhD., author of two outstanding resources on hiring and growing A-Players for your organization will join me tomorrow, Wednesday, December 17, at 8:00 AM to talk about:

1. When companies are laying people off, should they be thinking about hiring?
2. Leading companies like GE, Honeywell and American Heart Association, have achieved hiring success rates of 90%. How does their 90% success rate compare with the average company's success rate?
3. How costly are mis-hires?
4. How Topgrading can help companies avoid the most common hiring mistakes.

You can listen live at www.blogtalkradio.com/zane-safrit.

You can call in, listen and ask questions at 646-915-9212.

I'm excited to be able to talk with another business and marketing expert. I've been a huge advocate of the Topgrading method based on the success I had implementing it at a prior company. I was so enthusiastic I offered complimentary passes for customers to the day-long Topgrading training event. And I prominently profiled these outstanding two resources from Brad Smart in my ebook, The Collaborative Hiring Process. He graciously wrote a cover testimonial.

These resources are:

The Smart Interviewer: Tools and Techniques for Hiring the Best.

Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping the Best People.